Michael Flatley announced Monday evening that his wife of 20 years, Niamh O'Brien Flatley, has died at 52. In a statement shared on social media, the Lord of the Dance creator wrote: "My heart is broken. I have lost my beautiful wife, Niamh, and my best friend. My gorgeous bride of twenty years has gone to the Lord in Heaven. She was the most loving mother, wife and person, and our lives will never be the same without her."
Niamh O'Brien was a former dancer in Flatley's shows who first met him on the set of Riverdance in 1994. The couple married on October 14, 2006, at St. Patrick's Church in Fermoy, County Cork, and share a son, Michael St. James, born in 2007. Reports say she had been ill for some time.
Flatley, 68, the Chicago-born Irish-American dancer and choreographer, created two of the most successful Irish dance productions in history - Riverdance and Lord of the Dance - and built a global entertainment empire around his precision dance troupes. He asked fans to keep the family in their prayers.
Tributes poured in from across the entertainment world as the news was confirmed by The Irish Times, All About Cork and the Daily Star on Monday evening.
